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They think that it’s just some no-name building.ĭnA: These spaces are safe spaces for the reasons you’ve explained, but they can also be – at the very same time – unsafe spaces, precisely because the gay community gathers there, and they can become a target. There’s a bar called La Plaza, which is a primarily Latino gay bar that people pass and have no idea that it’s a gay bar. There’s so many places that seem like some sort of divey, whatever bar, but when you look into them and get an idea of what’s happening there, you realize, “Oh, there’s queer history here that is overlooked.” I think a great example of that is on La Brea.
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Stone Bar in Hollywood was another one, which is now Harvard & Stone, but used to be … a gay bar for primarily the Thai community.īut there are so many. Spotlight in Hollywood on Cahuenga was another one. That was a place where people could be themselves – and now, it’s “the Black Cat,” a trendy restaurant in Silver Lake. A lot of gay people in, I believe, the ’60s or ’70s used that space to organize. Black Cat was a historic gay rallying point. There was The Other Side in Silver Lake, which was a piano bar for an older gay audience. KF: There’s just so many that have now gone away. (The original image is no longer available, please contact KCRW if you need access to the original image.) Kyle Fitzpatrick, journalist and co-founder of Boy Club. Because you can now connect in so many other different ways and be out.ĭnA: Give us some of the other important gay bars in LA’s gay history. On top of that, you also have this idea that because we have marriage equality, because we have such an acceptance of LGBTQ persons, people don’t feel the need to – if you identify as queer – to go to this space.
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There’s been a lot of theories that with apps like Grindr and Tinder, people don’t need to go to a gay bar to meet other gay people, or other queer people, or other trans people, etc. They’ve been going out of business, or the rent’s even going up, and people have just moved out. It seems that in bigger cities, since the ’80s, there’s been a kind of decrease in gay bars. KF: In my research, there are a few things going on. So, where do we go? How can we express ourselves in an unfiltered environment with likeminded people when it starts to fade away?ĭnA: Are they fading away? Obviously, this club, Pulse, hadn’t faded away. It becomes concerning that these spaces where we can go and be ourselves aren’t around. When they start disappearing, it becomes an issue of visibility. That’s a place where we can go and be ourselves in an unfiltered situation without judgment. If you think about the gay community as other communities, à la religion or something, our rallying points, our churches are gay bars. Kyle Fitzpatrick: Gay bars are safe spaces. He sat down with DnA to explain why.ĭnA: Start off by telling us: why are gay bars so important? Kyle Fitzpatrick, co-founder of the gay culture magazine Boy Club, recently wrote “ Why Gay Bars Are So Important” for ATTN. Gay bars and nightclubs have long served as sanctuaries for LGBT communities, but many of these venues have been disappearing. On June 12, the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States took place in Orlando, Florida at Pulse, a gay nightclub.